Orders, Decorations and Medals

An interesting K.C.M.G., C.B. group of five awarded to Admiral Sir Guy Gaunt, Royal Navy, Naval Attaché and Chief of the British Intelligence Service in the United States during the Great War, where he was responsible for acquainting President Wilson of the contents with the famous Zimmermann Telegram

The Order of St. Michael and St. George, K.C.M.G., neck badge and breast star, silver-gilt and enamels, some minor chips; The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, C.B. (Civil) silver-gilt breast badge; British War and Victory Medals (Capt., R.N.); U.S.A., Navy Distinguished Service Medal, gilt and enamels, generally good very fine £1500-1800

Guy Reginald Archer Gaunt was born 25 May 1869, and educated at Melbourne Grammar School, Australia, and the training ship Worcester. After a short spell aboard merchant ships he joined the R.N.R. as an Acting Sub-Lieutenant and received their Lordships’ approval for services in torpedo boat No. 62 on her passage across the North Atlantic in 1890. He joined the Royal Navy in October 1895, and as a recently promoted Lieutenant aboard H.M.S. Swift, he saw service in the Phillipines operations of 1897, and two years later, as Lieutenant of Porpoise, he commanded the British Consulate at Apia, Samoa, during the rebel attack on that town. Soon afterwards he raised and commanded the native regiment known as “Gaunt’s Brigade” and operated with it in other disturbances in Samoa. For these services he received promotion to Commander and was twice mentioned in despatches.

Gaunt next witnessed active service as Commander of H.M.S. Vengeance during the Russo-Japanese war and in 1907 he was promoted to the rank of Captain. On 1 June 1914, he was appointed Naval Attaché at the British Embassy in Washington and was subsequently responsible for acquainting President Wilson with the contents of the famous Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany invited Mexico into the war as an ally of Germany. This incident was finally responsible for bringing America into the war in 1917.

The British Intelligence operation in America was divided into two sections. The gathering of military and commercial intelligence was the work of the Embassy attachés, dominated by Gaunt. Civilian counter-intelligence, which included the screening of passengers wishing to travel to Europe, was controlled by Sir Courtney Bennett. Both men were the opposite of their German counterparts. Both were gregarious, and Gaunt obviously liked the Americans, who in turn thought the world of him and called him the ‘nautical Sherlock Holmes’. His views and his interpretations of American policy were widely sought, and because he was astonishingly well briefed he acquired a reputation as a man who was both wise to and understanding of the American point of view.

Gaunt next became a Liaison Officer for the United States, with the rank of Commodore First Class, and in 1918 he returned home to serve on convoy duties. He finished the war with his Broad Pennant aboard Leviathan, and was again mentioned in despatches and created a K.C.M.G. and C.B. Gaunt was Conservative M.P. for the Buckrose Division of Yorkshire from 1922 to 1926. He received promotion to Admiral (retired) in 1928 and died on 18 May 1954. He was the brother of Admiral Sir Ernest Gaunt, R.N., K.C.B., K.B.E., C.M.G. The group is accompanied by a copy of the recipient’s book The Yield of the Years (A Story of Adventure, Afloat and Ashore), London 1940, and The Zimmermann Telegram, by Barbara Tuchman, New York 1958.